366 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



pay for the labor and expense laid out on a plantation, ranking, 

 in this respect, next perhaps to the locust. The American 

 and European chestnut are considered varieties of the same 

 species, the latter bearing the largest, the former the sweetest 

 fruit. 



The Beech (Fugus sylvatica) is a large spreading tree, 

 remarkable for its bright green foliage, and its clean leaden 

 gray trunk and branches. The shaft of this tree is common- 

 ly fluted or ribbed, and in a dense forest, these columns, ris- 

 ing to the height of forty or fifty feet, perfectly smooth, 

 present a very beautiful appearance. There are extensive 

 tracts in some of the Northern States which are wholly 

 covered with beech trees. Their habit of throwing up suck- 

 ers, and multiplying by their roots, is probably one cause of 

 this gregarious propensity. In beech woods, the close mat- 

 ting of leaves that covers the ground prevents any species 

 from being propagated by the seed, which, even if it could be 

 planted there, would not vegetate under such a mass of 

 foliage. 



A singularity in the shape of the beech is produced by the 

 horizontal tendency of its lower branches, while the upper 

 ones run upwards with less tendency to spread, so as often to 

 leave a dividing space between the upper and lower portions 

 of the tree. But this shape is by no means general, though 

 the tree is, for the most part, rather fantastic in its ramifica- 

 tion, and may sometimes be seen with a collection of thick 

 and contorted branches, comparatively short, in the centre of 

 the tree, while the upper branches are long and divergent. 

 It may be added that a beech tree is seldom seen alone with- 

 out a growth of suckers, forming quite a conspicuous mass 

 around the root of the tree. 



A growth of beech trees on the edge of a wood, where 

 they have grown up since a clearing, appears to fine ad van* 

 tage, and gives a neatness and beauty to its appearance, which 

 could be produced by no other tree. All this is owing to a 

 peculiar sweep of the lateral branches, and the stiff upright 

 character of the foliage, the leaves all pointing upward and 

 outwardly, in the direction of the branches, instead of hang- 



